This came up in email last night, so let’s make a clearinghouse in the comments thread: If you’re looking for someone to split a hotel room with you for BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix, declare yourself in the comments and see who salutes.
Category: Casual Friday (page 13 of 25)
The following is a true story. The names were not changed and only the mistakes were innocent.
Not too many years ago I took a month off and traveled to India (for those new to the real estate profession, there was actually a time one could take a long vacation and still be successful). India was not so much a destination of choice as it was obligation: I was married at the time and my wife’s family is from there. In any case, I found myself in India.
It is common for foreigners traveling in India to become sick the first week (the malady even has a name: New Delhi belly). When I began feeling better I wanted to go for a run. From the tenth floor window of our hotel room I looked down upon a large, undeveloped space bounded on all sides by city streets – roughly the equivalent of a city block. I guesstimated a lap to be just short of a half mile and headed down to get in an hour’s worth of exercise. Seemed simple enough from the tenth floor. Strange thing though: once on the ground the loop was not nearly as obvious and that third left turn just never appeared. I was quickly lost:
Lesson 1: No matter how great or simple or brilliant your marketing plan, things can and will go wrong.
I decided that I would keep going, counting on the innate, natural sense of direction all males possess… (I’ll pause for a moment while the women stop laughing). Two and half hours later I decided I was really lost. Nothing looked familiar and I was no longer even in town. It was also at this point that I stopped and took a good hard look at my situation: “I am lost, I don’t speak the language, I don’t have any ID with me and I’m not carrying any money. Hmmm, this is not good.” I decided to enlist some help; I was pretty much all-in after running for over two hours and imagined everyone back at the hotel worried sick. Plus, there was the ‘spectacle’. Read more
Plenty of authors dream of writing the great American novel.
Bradley Inman wants to create great fiction, dramatic online video and compelling Twitter stream — and then roll them all into a multimedia hybrid that is tailored to the rapidly growing number of digital reading devices.
Mr. Inman, a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur, calls this digital amalgam a “Vook,” (vook.tv) and the fledgling company he has created with that name just might represent a possible future for the beleaguered book industry.
There is so much wrong with this idea — and I realize that the Times never gets anything right — that I can only think of two words in response:
Market research.
Print is dead. The book as a transmission medium, with or without print, is dead. Marrying books to video makes great sense — for comic books: DC, Marvel and the entire graphic novel business have never had things better. Adding video to actual books is just dumb. And blending “social media” into the batter is just twitter-brained echo-chamber cargo-cultism.
Here’s the real deal, and the talisman that reveals that Brad Inman is anything but a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur:
Every dinosaur in the land is thrashing about, looking for a way to create a mass-media product that can be locked behind a paywall, thus to force the punters to cough up the dough like they always have in the past.
Welcome to our world, Brad, which you quite clearly have never understood.
I do want to give Inman credit for a new invention, though. The “vook” (yikes!) is not dead on arrival. It’s dead before arrival. It stalks the night, a zombie of the mind, with its only reality, perhaps, being an unfinished web site and a gushing article in the notoriously useless New York Times. But this is not for naught. The “vook” will never live, but Brad Inman has inadvertently created a new category of hi-tech start-ups: The Undead Pool.
So I told them how badly they had screwed up, and, god help ’em, they set about to fix their mistake:
Good grief. How sad…
The Arizona Association of Realtors has some kind of event coming up, too, and, it goes without saying, I’ve been snubbed from that, too.
Listen up, functionaries: It’s totally cool. I’m not going to do anything that gives aid and comfort to any branch of the NAR, nor to any exponent of the co-broke. I’m sure the more intelligent members of AAR and ARMLS might like to hear what I have to say, but — taking account of where your eyes are right now — what do we need you for?
Even so, you have to admit the whole thing is funny…
I choose to live in a big American city because frankly, I stick out like a sore sport in most rural settings and my accountant says we can’t afford London. One of my earliest pre-school memories was a Trenton to New York City train ride with my mother on a blustery Saturday morning. How much of that early 1960s day trip I accurately recall and how much is anecdotal family filler (pulled, kneaded and peppered over the redolent decades around my parents’ kitchen table) I’m not quite sure. Still, certain sepia frames have been imprinted in my mind for life— gazing up at the sky scrapers whose dizzying heights give me vertigo to this day; creeping like a mouse through the bowels of The Museum of Natural History, terrified of the mummies and the smell of all that marble; seeing a man get his arm tore off by a taxi cab while standing at a busy Broadway corner…I’m pretty sure; sitting on a New York City phone book for a child’s eternity at Mamma Leone’s, waiting for the dessert course to arrive. Feeding the ducks in Central Park. Observing the landscape artists with easels and tams, their turpentined pigments slathered on thumb-holed palettes, probably all long dead by now but full of abstract perspective on that day. Not peeing my pants for the entire afternoon.
A similar ferment churned in my gut when I first strolled the arrondissements of Paris; same thing along the canals of Rome; and Gaudi’s Barcelona. And while I can easily inhale the woodsy fragrance of say, a Walden Pond (or even Dyer, Tennessee) without much complaint, I am clearly no Thoreau. Once you think you see a guy get his arm torn off in Times Square, you can never really go back to the suburbs. Not entirely.
As each year strikes like lightning, I find myself being both drawn to, and repelled from, the urban twist of what once was Sandburg’s Chicago with its animal sense of outcome and yellow inner eye… ‘ hog butcher for the world.’ Liebling’s Second City. On a calm evening the whispers can Read more
“Yes Mr. Seller…That’s right. As part of my effort to gain exposure for your property, I’ll do my best to produce and promote a short video that may have the potential to go a little viral…”
Witness: “The social networking site no one else knows about.”
At last… A social networking site where I can be alone…
I have talked about and written on Mayoral Marketing before. The basic premise of marketing, according to this theory, is to build a community of people who would elect you mayor. This concept leads to some useful details on how we should go about marketing in order to accomplish this election. (Hint: it’s a campaign) The problem though, is that Mayoral Marketing explains the how of marketing, but not the why. I know, the “why” seems obvious: the goal of marketing is to generate potential clients and closed transactions, right? Wrong. That’s the objective; that’s the end result to be gained. But the question of “why” is a question of purpose. Does everything that makes up the how lead to the objective. In other words: what is the actual GOAL of our marketing?
The goal of marketing is to place us with the potential client at the moment of epiphany. Let’s call this Epiphany Marketing. What am I talking about? Most people don’t just suddenly decide to buy or sell a house. Usually, something else happens; they’re walking along when all of a sudden:
- They hear that cousin Bernard just bought a house. BAM! (moment of epiphany) “If my dopey cousin Bernard can buy a house, I certainly can.” At which point the good marketer wants to figuratively (if not literally) be standing right there in front of them.
- They meet with their CPA and find out how big their tax liability is for the year. BAM! (moment of epiphany) “I need to buy a property and get some deductions… right now.” Again, a good marketing campaign puts you there in their mind even as they have the epiphany.
- They’re walking along and the beautiful, young wife says, “honey, you know I love you. That’s why I’m so excited to be pregnant” … (wait for it) … BAM!! “I need a bigger house!” The goal of any good marketer, when that tender and touching moment arrives, is to be standing right there between the both of them.
This is alternatively known as Mind Share as well as Top of Mind Status – but I like Epiphany Read more
A few things that are almost posts. Wanted to put the thoughts into the Echo Chamber, quote song lyrics, and rock my baby Ruby to sleep since pretty Heather is all sick and stuff. So here’s the best of my drafts.
[1] You’re Jammin‘ Me. I’m opting out of the political spew. There’s plenty of negativity. But really, I’m not into what the house, Senate, Obama does. There’s not a dimes worth of difference between conservatism and socialism. Neither are freedom. When we can stop genuflecting to abstract hierarchies and live and die by our individual contributions, we’ll be in a better place. So, I’m recommending no more recoiling at the political BS. Instead, I’m going to outpace everyone, including the looters. I’m going to buy some gold, to be sure, but I’m going to keep moving forward. No energy will be wasted. I’ll run as fast as I can, and hopefully that will be enough to outrace the Horde.
[2] I don’t care what they say about us anyway… There is a profound difference to be here. I went after Greg Swann, publicly , and in the comments with regard to him collecting money for Heap . I never suspected his motives, but I wanted to guard against the appearance of impropriety. He…gave a harrumph and now the Heap money will go to Charity. I came at Greg hard enough to trigger 4 emails to me (I’ve never had 4 emails from one post). I’m still allowed to post here. Compare that to the comment I left elsewhere that prompted a shrill and bizarre call from a quavering webblogger on a Saturday morning…in may of 2008, and you know that we’re about ideas, and we’re all gonna change course when we’re wrong, or when we appear to some to be wrong. It’s seriously different here, and if you can realize that, email Greg. He won’t take your face off of a sidebar for taking pot shots at him.
[3] You Got a Lotta Nerve…To Say You Are My Friend …Never, ever try to start a relationship with anyone esp. ME by talking Read more
Surely this landed in your inbox this morning as well. Maybe there was something just like it. But I’m seeing a bright future for the site that aims to “revamp the way we define words in United States.”
Experts in United States offers a “lifetime purchase” with “no hidden fees.” So get in while you still can.
Their mission is hidden in plain sight:
Invitation to People and Businesses in United States
Subject: ExpertsInUnitedStates.com Launch
Good Morning, this is an invitation to share with you an interesting, fun, and modern new site, where you can promote your areas of Expertise in United States.
We believe that we are all experts in something, and now we want to give you the opportunity to purchase the word that defines your expertise.
What we want to do is revamp the way we define words in United States.
So how does Experts in United States work?
Well, ExpertsInUnitedStates lists thousand different words and for the price of one dollar per letter you can associate that specific word with your website or blog.
ExpertsInUnitedStates is interested in different interpretations of words by different individuals, and so the website was created in part to explore and play with the definitions of words.
So to give you an idea, if you are a “Gas Company”, you could be interested in purchasing the word – Diesel – 6 letters – total cost $6.
If you are a Hotel in Chicago, you could be interested in purchasing the word – Hotel – 5 letters – total cost $5.
Once a word has been sold, the word is not available any more, and it is linked forever to your site.
All the purchases are lifetime. No hidden fees.
Confused? Well, the easiest way to understand this unique marketing concept is to visit the site and give it a go… We believe that this fun and practical way to promote your business not only generates extra traffic to your website, but it can also recession-proof your business by promoting it as an expert in your field.
Still confused?? Well, being of altruistic nature, I’ve left the term RealEstate and other related terms up for grabs. So Read more
Once upon a time there were three little pigs, and, although they were brothers and looked a lot a like, they could not have been more different.
The first little pig was hard-working and thrifty. He spent very little of his income, saving and investing as much money as he could. He lived with his mother well into adulthood, helping her with her expenses. He finally bought a home of his own when he could afford to pay for it all in cash. As you might expect, the thrifty little pig’s home wasn’t flashy, but it was all his, free and clear.
The second little pig didn’t save very much of his income, but he earned a lot of money as a rising executive, and he had an uncanny luck in the housing market. He bought a condominium on his 18th birthday, then traded up to his first single-family home before he was 21. By the time he was 30, the lucky little pig owned a very stately executive home — and he had been able to make a whopping 50% down-payment.
The third little pig wasn’t very good at working hard, and he had never kept a job long enough to get a raise. He wasn’t at all good at saving money, but he could borrow and spend it better than any little pig anywhere. Like the lucky little pig, he moved away from home early, but he just kept moving — from apartments to friends’ couches to rental homes and then to one girlfriend’s house after another.
If you are a liberal, you may be thinking of the third brother as the unfortunate little pig. If you are a conservative, you will want to call him the lazy little pig — or worse. To keep the peace, let’s just call him the puerile little pig — the little brother who never quite grew up.
The original version of this story was about construction quality as a metaphor for planning ahead, anticipating disasters so they don’t take you by surprise. But the world of real estate has changed a lot since then. The most important Read more